Changing the Finish Line: Implications of New Graduation Requirements in the School District of Philadelphia

Beginning with the class of 2023, Pennsylvania high school students will need to demonstrate career or postsecondary preparedness to meet statewide graduation requirements and receive a high school diploma. The new graduation requirements were enacted in 2018 by Pennsylvania's Act 158. They are intended to codify high standards for all students and improve student achievement across Pennsylvania, while also taking into account student strengths, interests, and career goals. As profiled in PERC's recent related brief, Act 158 outlines five pathways to demonstrating career or postsecondary preparedness, two of which--the Keystone pathways-- require demonstrating proficiency on Pennsylvania's end-of-course subject exams for Literature, Algebra, and Biology. The remaining three pathways to graduation--the alternative pathways--require that a student (1) either earn a "Proficient" Keystone exam score or acceptable course grades in each Keystone subject area; and (2) demonstrate college or career readiness through one or multiple alternative metrics, such as through an industry-based competency certification, successful completion of a service-learning project, or an internship or cooperative education program, among other metrics. This report examines historical performance on Keystone exams to explore the potential impact of the policy on students in the School District of Philadelphia's high schools. While data to understand the impact on graduation outcomes through each of the five pathways are not yet available, existing data on Keystone proficiency can provide insights into the Keystone proficiency and composite pathways. Thus, in this report, pre-pandemic administrative data for students in the classes of 2018 and 2019 who took Keystone exams while enrolled in District middle or high schools was used to see how many and which students would have met or almost met Keystone-associated requirements for graduation as defined by Act 158, had the policy been in effect at that time. [For the related brief, "Changing Requirements in Pennsylvania for High School Graduation. A Policy Brief on Pennsylvania Act 158," see ED626029.]